Perhaps she had come farther than she knew; for all at once, in the dread stillness that nothing but the dripping dampness broke, a sound smote her like a pang. It was an innocent and simple sound enough, a man's voice, clear and sweet, though measured somewhat, and suppressed in volume, chanting a slow, sad hymn, that had yet a kind of rejoicing about it:-- "Oh, no longer bond in Egypt, No longer bond in Egypt, No longer bond in Egypt. The Lord hath set him free!" It came from a hollow below her. Flor pushed aside the great, glistening leaves in silence, and looked tremblingly in. There were half-burnt brands on a broad stone, throwing out an uncertain red glimmer; there was an awning of plaited reeds reaching from bough to bough; there was an old man stretched upon the ground, and a stalwart man sitting beside him and chanting this song, as if it were a burial-service: for the old man was dead. Flor began to tremble again, with that instinctive animal antipathy to death and dissolution. But in an instant a rekindling gleam of the embers, hardly quenched, shot over the singer's face. In the same instant Flor shook before the secret she had learned, Sarp was a runaway, to be sure; and runaways ate little girls, she knew. But Flor, having lately encouraged incredulity, could hardly find it in her heart to believe that the fact of having stolen himself could have so utterly changed the old nature of Sarp, the kind butler, who always had a pleasant word for her when others had a cuff. Yet should she hail him? Ah, no, never! But then--Miss Emma! Her young mistress would die of starvation and the damp. "Sarp!" whispered Flor, huskily. The man started and sprang to his feet, alert and ready, waiting for his unseen enemy,--then half relapsed, thinking it might be nothing but the twitter of a bird. "It's me, Sarp." Who that was did not seem so plain to Sarp; he darted his swift glance in her direction, then at one step parted the bushes and dragged her through, as if it were game that he had trapped. "Oh, Sarp!" cried Flor, falling at his feet. "Doan' yer kill me now! I di'n' mean to ha' found yer. I's done los' in de swamp, wid"---- But Flor thought better of that. The man raised her, but still held her out at arm's length, while he listened for further sound behind her. "Oh, jus' le' go, Sarp, an' I'll dance for you till I drap!" she cried. "Is it a time for dancing," he replied, "and the earth open for burying?" "Lors, Sarp!" cried Flor, shrinking from the shallow grave she had not seen, "how's I to know dat?"--and she gave herself safe distance. "Help me yere, then," said he. But Flor remained immovable, and Sarp was obliged to perform by himself the last offices for the old slave, who, living out his term of harassments and hungers, had grown gray and died in the swamps. He went at last and brought an armful of broken sweet-flowering boughs and spread them over the place.